NEFAR's October 2007 Launch

Robb Haskins and his scale Patriot attracted the attention of "Lawrence" (host Lawrence Beldon Smythe).

The Patriot soared over 5000' on an M motor and was recovered on the far corner of the field.

While the film crew helped Robb recover his rocket, we had a couple of misadventures.

One rocket came down on fire. But Jimmy Yawn was on the scene to make a wish and blow it out.

Shortly after that, we had a fire on the launch pad.

I launched my "Mustang Sally" which carries a video camera. I recently added dual deployment to the rocket and tested it.

The first flight looked good at first. The rocket, on an I200 motor, soared to about 850' feet. The drogue parachute deployed right at apogee. At about 700' the main charge fired as planned, but the main parachute didn't deploy. The rocket landed safely, though, since I had used a larger-than-necessary drogue. As soon as I reached the rocket, the reason for the problem was obvious - I had forgotten to install the main parachute.

We also launched our Big Daddy Akavish on an I154 motor.

Unfortunately, the rocket arced into the wind and didn't reach a high enough altitude for the altimeter to arm. But, in the great tradition of our Akavish launches, it bounced on its head and suffered only minor damage.

Others had much better success. Gary Dahlke launched a large rocket on an L motor.

Additional photographs from the launch are in the Photo Gallery: